Results of Ruminations

Out of curiosity, I googled "Why is Star Wars so good?" It gave me a lot of would-be think pieces about if the next Star Wars will live up to its hype. I had to tweak my search, and eventually I found a couple of articles that listed stuff the writer liked about Star Wars as an explanation for why it's worthwhile. Frustrated, I finally landed on an article from 1983 that actually talks about the film as a film. It didn't expand too much for me, but it was nice to see someone had tried to articulate what Star Wars does successfully. On a whim, I googled "Why is Game of Thrones so good?" and, within two hits, had found a thought-provoking, intriguing article that made a case for GoT 's success that goes far beyond "sex and violence". I don't really know what to make of this, since we've had decades to think about Star Wars and only six years to figure out GoT, but I think there's a momentum of fan ossification (mixed metaphor...s

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints recently released new policies regarding the children of same-sex unions--relationships or marriages, it doesn't seem to matter--with some people providing one point of view and others, well, another . This has been difficult for me. I already posted my thoughts on marriage equality , so it probably isn't a surprise to anyone reading this that I am more on the side of those who feel this is a deliberate targeting of a minority group. I'm not resigning my membership, turning in my temple recommend, or encouraging anyone else to do so, either (unless they feel that's what they ought to do, in which case, I hope it goes well). Instead, I'm trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. Why Bother? I think that's my first question. Why make this policy change in the first place? Same-sex marriage (the most likely impetus for this change) is on the books in other countries--countries where the Church has long be

Since there are a lot of bumbling and conflicting ideas floating out there about the SCOTUS ruling with regards to marriage equality, I felt the need to document some of my thoughts and try to cobble them together here. My Religion and Marriage Equality According to a simple Google search, those who self-identify as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--or an LDS (I guess, grammatically, that's what you'd have to write)--make up approximately two- or three percent of the United States. The numbers can be tricky: The Church's numbers can include children and those who've left the Church but haven't taken their names off the records. Surveys by the PEW and others have pointed to a lower number (since they'd be interested in adults and those who self-identify as being a member), but I think ballpark statistics bear out the point I'm headed toward: There are roughly the same number of self-identifying Mormons as there are self-ide

I watched Jurassic World last night. Short version: I liked it quite a bit. Long version: I have a love/love relationship with the Jurassic Park series, a love that blossomed when the first film came out in 1993. The novel Jurassic Park was the first 'adult book' (so called in my brain because 1) my dad read it, and 2) it was found in airport bookstores, which never carried any of the Dragonriders of Pern or Spider-Man novels that comprised most of my reading diet at the time) I read. I knocked the whole thing out over a weekend while in 6th grade. I still remember hauling the battered paperback in the inside pocket of my coat, thrilled that it fit. Memories of the summer of '93 are still fresh in my mind: Seeing the 7-Eleven cups with scenes from the movie and having no context why a guy was hugging a triceratops; the giddy thrill of seeing the cup of water oscillate; laughing at some of the few jokes I understood; identifying with little Timmy as a young, m

I am one of those people who, after 32 years of birthdays, still likes getting older. Well, I suppose I should clarify that: I love having a birthday. When I was about to turn 24, my first son was born. In fact, it was the day before my own birthday when he came into this world. In part because I was happy to be a dad, and in part because he almost didn't stay in the world for long, I enveloped Peter's birthday into my own. The one day's difference didn't bother me (even though, as a child, I secretly hated my younger brother for having a birthday in March), and I have always deeply enjoyed celebrating my son's birthday with my own. Part of my love of a birthday is from growing up. In a family of four kids, there were plenty of ways in which I could get attention from my parents, but I was always content to just kind of...be there. I didn't do a lot of sports, extra-curricular activities, or trouble. I was pretty content to cruise, rarely doing much out

I'm confident many (read: three or four) people will want me to weigh in on today's exciting news  about the maybe-reinstatement of Brontosaurus  as a "real" dinosaur. I'm not terribly thrilled. "What?" I can hear you say. "But you love dinosaurs!" Yes. Yes, I do. But I really love what's real  about dinosaurs, and what's real is what's understood through a very meticulous process of the scientific method, analyses, and debates. One paper does not an improper classification change. See, the Internet's deep love for Pluto and Brontosaurus (I've decided not to put it into quotation marks the way Brian Switek does throughout his incredible book, My Beloved Brontosaurus   because that's a stylistic choice that I'm not super fond of) has given a disproportionate sense of science having 'robbed' childhoods and assumptions due to best guesses made off of insufficient data. This sense of victimhood--of depriv

I haven't blogged about my book, Writ in Blood , since I proclaimed that I was done with it and wouldn't pick it up again until it was published. Embarrassingly, I'm now going to blog about it, even though I'm not any closer to my publishing goals now than I was in 2013. What happened was this: Twitter. While shopping around my manuscript, I followed some of the agents whom I'd queried. Not too much after sending off to one particular agent (I won't say who, mostly because I can't remember), I saw a mini Twitter-rant among two or three agents about the size of queried stories. Mine came in at 289,000+ words, and the tweet specifically raged about 290,000 word submissions. A little later--once the sting of knowing I'd ticked off some agents had faded--I mentioned to a different agent the size of my manuscript. She'd replied with a glance askance. (Looked like this, if I remember right: 0.o) She then recommended that I try splitting it up. For

Chronology here is getting a little twisted as I put this most-crucial moment down. I've tried to write in such a way that each experience informs the next, but I've taken my time to get to this point. Part of that comes from my own poor use of time--it's been the better part of a year since I last tried carving out anything else about the Bard. I've been a negligent disciple in many ways and to many of my passions. At any rate, I repeat here what I've written elsewhere in an extended quote of myself. I will provide some small context before launching into this, however, as I'm approaching the anniversary of my trip to London. At school, we devote the first three weeks of January to a special type of class called Winterim. I have, over the years, taught classes on video games, short film, garage bands, Harry Potter, and comic books. In January 2014, I went with a handful of students on a 10 day trip to England. Ostensibly, we were there to get a feel for En